


hoping we'll eat cake by the ocean

by milkdaze (flowerstems)



Series: feel good inc. [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Day 4, M/M, Olivarry Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5055013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerstems/pseuds/milkdaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Oliver Queen sees Barry Allen, he gets distracted and crashes his motorcycle into a tree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hoping we'll eat cake by the ocean

**Author's Note:**

> based off the prompt [i’m a biker and one day i was biking in your neighborhood while you just happened to be outside watering the plants and since you’re so goddamn cute i accidentally steered into a pole and now you’re giving me first aid (holy shit you’re even cuter up close). ](http://marstheradplanet.tumblr.com/post/124802552153/more-au-ideas-no-one-asked-for)
> 
> this is in a happy fun au where oliver never got on the gambit and the particle accelerator never went online/boom, so there is sadly no brooding oliver. aw, yeah, i know.  
> warnings for some blood and hospital related consequences of tree-hitting. title from dnce's 'cake by the ocean'.

The first time Oliver Queen sees Barry Allen, he gets distracted and crashes his motorcycle into a tree.

He can go into detail, but long story short is he was riding through Central City, which is worth the long drive because it’s somehow a lot peppier than Starling City, minding his own business and enjoying the carefree air of this particular neighbourhood. That was the plan, just a drive by.

Then he sees this guy, this totally ordinary guy, and the rest happens in the span of five seconds: Oliver notices that he’s got brown hair, a red sweater, and looks adorably focused on tinkering with some kind of… something, he lingers for a second more than he should have and, being a guy who gets distracted when appreciating the finer things in life, he crashes into a tree.

As a simple human, he’s knocked unconscious by the impact—helmets give you life, not immunity—and when he’s conscious again the helmet’s off somewhere and that cute brunet from before is hovering over him, blocking his view of the sky and bandaging his wrist.

Oliver’s thoughts are still knocking senselessly about in his head, everything smells like grass, tastes like iron, and his entire body is singing with the heat of the afternoon and the pain of his carelessness. The only thing he can move at the moment is his mouth so he tries to say the easiest thing to say after spitting out some blood. The words muddle on his tongue, heavy and metallic, and come out slurred, “You’re, you’re really cute.”

 

Barry was just minding his own damn business for once, trying out that new microscope Iris got him for Christmas on just about everything, and for his troubles (of not running around and being his usual do-gooder self) he gets some guy crashing into the tree in the neighbour’s yard.

The first thing Barry thinks is how damn unlucky the man is, there’s only one tree on the block and he somehow managed to crash into it. Then it clicks, a man just crashed into a tree. On a motorcycle. That has to hurt in so many different ways.

Barry rushes inside the house, grabs the first-aid kit then rushes outside, makes a beeline for the man sprawled out gracelessly on the lawn and grimaces at the state he’s in. Barry carefully takes off the man’s helmet, the visor is badly cracked, that tree’s damn old, and the last thing this guy needs after an impact like that is a face full of plastic.

The man is attractive, really, really, _really_ — 

He checks as best as he can for injuries, he’s a scientist, not a doctor, he’s not sure how to go about this, and wipes as much blood as he can off the blond. There are stubborn flecks of blood in his hair, stark and glittering in the afternoon sun, and patches of congealed blood on his forehead, the corner of his mouth, and Barry tries not to stare.

He focuses instead on setting the man’s wrist with a splint and bandaging it. Honestly, Barry should just take him to the hospital, but there are first-aid skills he’s been dying to try out for years.

He’s almost done when the man lets out a pained groan, head rolling from side to side, and Barry pauses, waits. The man is silent for a while and Barry continues bandaging his wrist until he hears “You’re, you’re really cute.” He’s surprised to hear that and it shows, not because Barry doesn’t find himself attractive, but that this guy just crashed his motorcycle into a tree; he’s bleeding from the nose and the mouth, his wrist is probably broken, and he probably fractured a few bones, but the first thing he says after he spits the blood out of his mouth is “you’re cute.”

Not ‘what happened?’ or ‘call 911’ or something.

You’re cute.

“Actually, I’m Barry,” he chuckles and finishes bandaging the man’s wrist, “and you’re half-dead. More or less. Your bike’s fine, though.” Barry almost laughs at that; the ride is just fine, leaning harmlessly against the tree with a dent or two, while the rider is on the ground, unable to even writhe in pain because writhing will be even more painful.

Despite what Barry just told him, the man attempts to move, only to let out a pained groan and settle back into the grass. He sighs and gazes around, looking dazed and confused, then chuckles, “Actually, I’m Oliver.”

“Nice to meet you, except it would have been nicer if you weren’t,” Barry gestures to Oliver, sprawled on his back and speckled red with blood and green with grass and leaves.

Oliver makes a noncommittal sound and Barry is really starting to wonder, what exactly is this man’s thought process? “Do you always patch up injured motorcyclists on your lawn?” Oliver turns his head to look at Barry, then adds, “Thanks, by the way.”

“I’ve only ever patched up one motorcyclist. He was a pretty unlucky guy. Hit the only tree on the block.” Oliver laughs at that and grimaces immediately after. Maybe he really did fracture a couple bones. “I’m just going to… call an ambulance.” Barry reaches for his phone and when Oliver objects, only to groan in pain again, Barry dials 911 and puts the phone to his ear with a smug expression.

Oliver can object all he wants.

 

Apparently, Oliver wanted to object a lot, because he gripes and complains the entire time until the ambulance arrives, and if he weren't already so damn injured Barry would have done a couple things to him that would have landed Oliver in an ambulance either way.

 

When Barry gets in to visit Oliver he's got a cast on his arm instead of the splint on his wrist, and he's probably got a cast on each leg. It doesn't look like Oliver will be leaving anytime soon.

Oliver seems unconcerned with his predicament though and after he thanks Barry again with a lazy smile, he goes right back to slurring “you're cute” and laughing and that's when Barry realises Oliver is high on morphine.

He should have called an ambulance sooner. Oops.

“Uh, does your family know you're here?”

“Mmhmm. My sister chewed me out about it,” he says, grinning, then honest-to-god giggling until he was laughing and could barely talk, “sh- she said, how could I run into a tree! She said she won’t visit me, but she will, and I can't feel my face, it's so funny—”

How much morphine did they give him? Or is he on something else?

“I don't think you should be laughing?” Barry is all for optimism but from the lawn to the hospital bed Oliver hasn’t shown the slightest concern for the fact he literally broke his body against a tree. “You're almost in a full-body cast.”

“Yeah,” he drawls, laughing at the ceiling then looking right at Barry, “but it was. So worth it.”

“How the hell—”

“Because I saw a cute guy, and I crashed into a tree, yeah, but then that same cute guy gave me first-aid then called an ambulance.” Oliver’s still smiling, Barry doesn’t think he’ll be able to stop as long as he’s pumped up with… whatever it is. “So it was worth it.”

It’s adorable, in this weird way, and Barry ends up laughing. Some people are just—

“So can you write your number on my arm’s cast? You bandaged it up before so you have the right.”

—amazing. Barry searches Oliver’s face, even though he’s grinning he looks serious, and he gives in. What’s the harm in giving his number to a guy so carefree about shattering his own body?

Plenty, but that doesn’t stop Barry from getting a marker and scribbling his number with a smiley face and a ‘get well soon’ wish.

 

Barry visits Oliver in the hospital every day, and when they're not laughing over the jokes about hot topic of the day (though Barry is sure Oliver doesn't get half of the science jokes, he's just laughing because Barry is), they talk and Barry finds that Oliver is a lot more than some guy who crashed his motorcycle because he got distracted.

 

When they let Oliver out, his family is there to whisk him back to Starling City because they won't let him drive for a while, “Not after you were dumb enough to crash into a tree, Ollie.”

Ollie is a cute nickname.

Oliver hugs Barry with his good arm then shows off the cast and says, “You can expect a call from me.” Then he does that thing where he smiles and it's really cute but then he purposely adds this cheesy wink and Barry wants to throw him back onto that hospital bed.

Or maybe the lawn, but anyway.

“I look forward to it.” Barry grins because he can't help himself, and shoves his hands into his pockets so he won't be tempted to hug, or smack, Oliver again. “See ya, Oliver.”

Oliver turns and holds his good hand up to his face like a phone, shaking it with a grin, “See ya, Barry.”

 

Oliver wasn't kidding about the phone calls. Barry may or may not be happy about that.


End file.
